Taking It Back by Joseph Talluto Page A

He jerked every time another zombie stepped on his entrails, which would then snap off, leaving bits behind. His dead eyes remained fixed on us, however, and he was going to hit us any second.
    I moved the gate closed and Tommy did the same. I slid a zip tie through the bars and secured them, stepping back just as the first zombie slammed into the barrier. The gates strained the tie, but didn’t break it. Tommy and I knew we needed more ties to secure the gate, but we didn’t want to get caught by the grasping hands that tried to get through the gap between the gates.
    Tommy came up with the answer. He waited until the push subsided, then charged the gate, keeping his hands on the reinforcing bars. The sudden push knocked down several zombies which tripped the ones coming up from behind. Using the opening, I quickly threaded three more zip ties before the hands came grasping again and I had to step back.
    The zombies surged again, but the gate held. Tommy and I exchanged a look then picked up the generator and took it to the cars. We didn’t have room in the back, so we used a length of cord and tied it to the roof, threading the cord through open windows. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
    Behind us, the zombies groaned and strained at their prison and I decided we needed to get out of sight before they broke free. We jumped into the cars and drove away, heading back the way we came, leaving behind yet another dead zone. Maybe we had the answers I was looking for riding with us, maybe not. I rummaged through my pack and dug out the binders and handed the one marked “Solutions” to Tommy to look through while I browsed through “Communications”.
    Sarah drove back the way we had come and headed south at the appropriate crossroads, leading our little convoy towards our new neighbors. I thumbed through the binder and found a few interesting pieces.
     
July 9 Communication from State Center Bravo: Infection spreading through housing units. Troop desertion increasing. Need reinforcements.
     
July 18 Communication from Governor: Contain all infected citizens.
     
July 29 Communication from Maryland Central: Capital has fallen, designated dead zone. Congress disbanded. President dead.
     
August 15 Communication from Colorado: Military in full retreat. Fall back to Cheyenne Mountain.
 
September 3 Communication from New York Central: UN collapsed.
 
October 18 Communication from California Coast: US Navy evacuate San Diego.
 
November 4 Communication from Houston: Dead Zone List update.
     
    I ran down the list of Dead Zones but after four pages I gave up. I figured we were pretty much on our own and it was up to us to decide whether we lived or died. I shook my head as Sarah gave me a questioning look and turned my attention to Tommy.
    “Anything good in there?” I asked, tossing the binder on the floor.
    “You wouldn’t believe some of the stupid things they wanted to try,” Tommy said, shaking his head.
    “Try me.”
    “Well, one of the suggestions was to douse the zombies in anti-bacterial gel, figuring it would kill them as they are walking disease factories.”
    I snorted. “You’re kidding”
    “Nope. Here’s another. Use incendiary bombs on all population centers to burn out the infection.”
    I shook my head. “Good thing we missed that one.”
    Tommy laughed. “Here’s my favorite. Develop an anti-zombie spray as personal protection against the undead. There’s even a chart describing the effects of pepper spray on zombies.”
    “And?”
    “All failed. Test number four resulted in the researcher getting bit.”
    “Figures. They’d have saved themselves a lot of trouble by just writing ‘Shoot in head, then burn.’” I turned back to the front.
    “Any info in the ‘Communications’ binder?” Tommy asked as he put away the ‘Solutions’ binder.
    I nodded. “It all went to hell too fast for them to get a handle on it. Congress and the President are dead and the list of Dead Zones is